Friday is the New Saturday

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Early arrivals.

It’s a natural evolutionary process—when an event gets big enough, the opening day becomes crowded. So those that don’t like the crowds start coming earlier—like a day earlier. Then the day earlier gets crowded… so they come a day before that… and so on, and so on.

AirVenture officially begins on Monday, but it has been a well known fact that all true believers (especially homebuilders) try to arrive the weekend before, which has made for more and more crowds on the arrival corridor every year. So Friday began to be the secret way in. This year, we had almost 50 airplanes in Homebuilt Camping on Thursday night, which means things are beginning to shift a day earlier. Today (Friday) the arrivals are a steady stream of inbounds making it seem like Saturdays of old, so Friday is the new Saturday.

The good news is that the weather is great, the ground firm, and the teams are in place to direct and park everyone—so starting a day earlier is no problem. Food still isn’t widely available on site, however, so if you’re coming early, be prepared to walk offsite or live off of what you bring in the plane. And for those worried about having a place to park, it is the stated goal of the EAA to never turn away a show plane—and all homebuilts are show planes. So if you start reading that parking is full, remember that the promise is that if you’re flying a homebuilt, they will find you a place.

This could be the year when we find out if that remains true!

Plenty of room in HBC… for now.
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Paul Dye
Paul Dye, KITPLANES® Editor at Large, retired as a Lead Flight Director for NASA’s Human Space Flight program, with 40 years of aerospace experience on everything from Cubs to the Space Shuttle. An avid homebuilder, he began flying and working on airplanes as a teen and has experience with a wide range of construction techniques and materials. He flies an RV-8 and SubSonex jet that he built, an RV-3 that he built with his pilot wife, as well as a Dream Tundra and an electric Xenos motorglider they completed. Currently, they are building an F1 Rocket. A commercially licensed pilot, he has logged over 6000 hours in many different types of aircraft and is an A&P, FAA DAR, EAA Tech Counselor and Flight Advisor; he was formerly a member of the Homebuilder’s Council. He consults and collaborates in aerospace operations and flight-testing projects across the country.

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